ArticleThe Journal of the Egyptian Public Health Association2022
COVID-19 and vaccination induced changes in hospital activity in Malta, Q1 2020 to Q1 2021: a population-based study.
Article in The Journal of the Egyptian Public Health Association, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Non-COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran: a longitudinal assessment of 41 million people in 2019-2022.BMC public health · 2024Article
- A population-based paediatric Covid-19 vaccination progress and outcomes: The Malta case.Ethics, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCOVID-19 has severely impacted global healthcare services. Malta has only one acute state hospital, Mater Dei Hospital (MDH), and at the time of writing is the most vaccinated country in Europe. Malta thus provides an ideal setting to assess the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare services at population level, including the impact of vaccination on hospital admissions.
methodsHospital data was obtained as anonymised totals from MDH's Clinical Performance Unit and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. COVID-19-related data was obtained from the Ministry of Health dashboard. Comparative assessments were performed to explore associations between the COVID-19 situation, vaccination, and hospital activity. Poisson regression was used to model the counts of monthly accident and emergency (A&E), outpatient clinics attendances and hospital admissions.
resultsA&E, hospital admissions, and outpatient clinics attendances declined (31.88%; 23.89%; 29.57%; p < 0.01 respectively) with onset of COVID-19 till April 2021 when compared to pre-COVID years (2017-2019). Admissions due to COVID-19 initially increased in parallel to the population's COVID positivity. Vaccination rollout led to a decline in COVID-19 admissions.
conclusionsThe drastic drop in admissions and outpatient attendees was expected but not for A&E attendees as acutely ill patients should still have attended. This is of public health concern since delayed or deferred medical management increases population morbidity, mortality and increases the eventual burden on the healthcare system. Mass vaccination saw the return to normality with an increase in A&E burden.
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